Legend, The Shining, and The 2015 Austin Film Fest

Scott Rowan, sitting alone at his computer… Facebooking. He gets an email. It’s from his small business insurance provider. It reads: “First ten people to tweet their favorite courageous movie will win two tickets to the opening night of the Austin Film Fest.”

Scott thinks, “I have Twitter, I have small business insurance, I love film festivals….” He quickly exits Gmail and opens Twitter. Tweets: “.@HiscoxSmallBiz @AustinFilmFest Ferris Bueller’s Day Off! Cameron finds the courage to be a man and take responsibility! #EncourageCourage”. Low and Behold!! It works! Two weeks later Scott and his girlfriend are sitting in the VIP section of the screening of Tom Hardy’s new movie Legend, followed by a Q&A with director Brian Helgeland.

To make it better… the Hiscox social media team interviewed each of the ticket winners about the courage it takes to start a new business. As several of Scott’s friends who he has convinced to quit their day jobs to pursue their own endeavors will tell you… this is a topic he loves to discuss.

Scott getting interviewed by the Hiscox social media team.

To top off a wonderful day of film-loving, Scott and his girlfriend went to their favorite cocktail spot in Downtown Austin, the Driskill Hotel. While walking to the bar to order a glass of Rosé (Melody’s pick), Scott bumps into his former neighbor from his last apartment in Los Angeles. Crazy right? Well even more crazy… it was his neighbor that he had really only interacted with briefly before, who also happens to be the former career assistant to the late, great, Stanley Kubrick… Leon Vitali. Scott, Melody, and Leon shared some wine and some laughs, and finally, after being separated by 3.5 states, became neighbors.

Drinks at the Driskill lead to friendships.

Leon was in town to present a screening of The Shining on Halloween for a session of “Phil’s Movie Night” hosted by the creator of Everybody Loves Raymond, Phil Rosenthal. With a last minute invitation to be “on the list” and a last minute attempt at Halloween costumes, Scott and Melody attended.

(I just realized I’m still writing this in third person.)

Obviously the film was fantastic, as it has always been. But the coolest part was the Q&A between Mr. Vitali and Mr. Rosenthal that followed. Aside from one dumb question from someone who thought they new more about Stanley Kubrick movies than Stanley Kubrick did, the entire discussion was very inspirational.

Inspirational discussion between Leon Vitali and Phil Rosenthal about making it work!

To paraphrase, and to inspire ANYBODY trying to do SOMETHING, just do it. Even Stanley and Leon spent their time on the set of The Shining (and all of their other films for that matter) “figuring it out and making it work as they went along.” What seems to us like the most thought out, intentional execution of the vision of a masterpiece, was actually a do-what-you-can-to-make-it-work scenario. A similar scenario perhaps experienced by a person quitting their job to start a catering app and company (I’m looking at you sporkcatering.com). From the shot of Jack losing his mind in the walk-in pantry, to the iconic sequence of Danny riding around on his tricycle over the wood and carpeted floor of the hotel lobby, it was all a process. Granted, Mr. Kubrick WAS, in Leon’s words, “a genius,” but even for a genius, you have to DO in order to make something great.

Scott Rowan has been a filmmaker and entertainer for a long time... too long to remember specifically... but we can say for sure he has been at it for at least two weeks. He definitely officially launched Row 1 Productions in 2015.